FREE NEWSLETTER: Econintersect sends a nightly newsletter highlighting news events of the day, and providing a summary of new articles posted on the website. Econintersect will not sell or pass your email address to others per our privacy policy. You can cancel this subscription at any time by selecting the unsubscribing link in the footer of each email.

Back in 1873, the United States boasted 4,144 breweries, a number that fell drastically by the middle of the 20th century.

Please share this article - Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.

After Prohibition, the brewery count grew extremely slowly and as recently as the 1970s, the country had fewer than 100 functional breweries. 1978 was particularly poor with the count falling to just 89. Amid the craft beer explosion, such a low number is unthinkable now.

These days, the bitter taste in drinker's mouths has become far milder with a near infinite number of beers to choose from. According to the Brewers Association, the brewery count has grown spectacularly over the past 10 years. In 2006, the U.S. had 1,460 of them and by 2016, the count had skyrocketed to 5,301. Broken down, 186 of those were regional craft breweries, 3,132 were microbreweries, 1,916 were brewpubs and 67 were non-craft.

The growing use of ad blocking software is creating a shortfall in covering our fixed expenses. Please consider a donation to Econintersect to allow continuing output of quality and balanced financial and economic news and analysis.

Keep up with economic news using our dynamic economic newspapers with the largest international coverage on the internet